Most people will certainly have missed yesterday’s online announcement from Andrew Southall, Reform UK’s parliamentary candidate for Dudley in July’s general election, that he was quitting as the party’s constituency chairman. Why would anyone sensible concern themselves with the comings and goings of obscure right-wing party functionaries?
Well, this is actually rather interesting. Mr Southall (pictured above) has quit because his erstwhile Tory rival in the election, Mr Marco Longhi, has defected from the Tories and joined Reform UK where, apparently, he has been warmly welcomed by local activists in the West Midlands constituency.
A man scorned
So Mr Southall, who sweated blood to get an impressive 26% vote share in July, has got the hump. He wasn’t told Longhi was on his way to Reform, let alone allowed to comment on his recruitment. So he’s posted a video online airing his grievances. It wasn’t long ago, you see, that Longhi was publicly blaming Southall for splitting the right wing vote and delivering the seat to Labour, and, according to Southall, treating Reform with contempt. Southall is a man scorned.
But that’s not all. During the election the Daily Telegraph ran an article – to which Southall draws attention in his recent post – alleging that only a couple of weeks after becoming Deputy Leader of UKIP, Nick Tenconi (now its ‘Acting Leader’, though never elected to either position) was allegedly sitting down with Southall offering him a deal if he would withdraw at the very last minute to allow Tory candidate and incumbent MP Marco Loghi a clear run without opposition from Reform.
The plan allegedly involved Mr Southall stepping down just hours before nominations were to be lodged with the local authorities, giving Reform no time or notice to find another candidate
Daily Telegraph
According to the Telegraph:
“The plan allegedly involved Mr Southall stepping down just hours before nominations were to be lodged with the local authorities, giving Reform no time or notice to find another candidate.
“That would have allowed Mr Longhi to run in Dudley without opposition from Reform.
“…they offered me two jobs and a supposed safe council seat in 2026 and if I stood down I would be £40,000 better off. I was so disinterested in the deal. It is very sad and desperate.”
So what’s the connection between Tenconi and Longhi? Well, before taking over UKIP, Tenconi was the CEO of the far right Turning Point UK. And Marco Longhi was Turning Point’s UK President.
A bit rum
Even so, it was a bit rum that the deputy leader of a political party with its own candidates running in the election should be involved in a questionable scheme to remove right wing opposition to the Tories, who according to both UKIP and Reform, bear a heavy responsibility for the ailing state of the UK.
Southall suspects that for the next parliamentary election he will be unceremoniously dumped and the man he refused to stand aside for in the Tenconi-inspired fix will be parachuted in to replace him.
So Southall is now publicly demanding to know if future selection procedures in Reform will be fair and open. On X/Twitter he put this question directly to Reform UK Chairman Zia Yusuf and Nigel Farage:
“Are favourable seats being offered to Tory defectors as a nailed on promise?”
Good question. So far, no reply…
